女性意識外文翻譯

1、外文翻譯feminist consciousness after the womens movementbarbara epstein there is no longer an organized feminist movement in the united states that influences the lives and actions of millions of women and engages their political support. there are many organizations, ranging from the national organizat

2、ion for women to womens caucuses in labor unions and professional groups, which fight for womens rights, and there are many more organizations, many of them including men as well as women, whose priorities include womens issues. but the mass womens movement of the late sixties, seventies, and early

3、eighties no longer exists. few, among the many women who regard themselves as feminists, have anything to do with feminist organizations other than reading about them in the newspapers. young women who are drawn to political activism do not, for the most part, join womens groups. they are much more

4、likely to join anti corporate, anti globalization, or social justice groups. these young women are likely to regard themselves as feminists, and in the groups that they join a feminist perspective is likely to affect the way in which issues are defined and addressed. but this is not the same thing a

5、s a mass movement of women for gender equality. a similar dynamic has taken place in other circles as well. there are now very large numbers of women who identify with feminism, or, if they are reluctant to adopt that label, nevertheless expect to be treated as the equals of men. and there are large

6、 numbers of men who support this view.the extent of feminist or proto-feminist consciousness, by which i mean an awareness of the inequality of women and a determination to resist it, that now exists in the united states, is an accomplishment of the womens movement. but it is also something of an an

7、omaly, since it is no longer linked to the movement that produced it. when the first wave of the womens movement in the united states went into decline, after woman suffrage was won in 1921, feminism went into decline with it. by the 1950s, feminism had almost entirely disappeared, not only as an or

8、ganized movement, but also as an ideology and a political and social sensibility. even in the early sixties, in the new left, to describe oneself as a feminist was to invite raised eyebrows and probably more extreme reactions. now, for a second time in u.s. history, the memory of a movement that eng

9、ages the energy of very large numbers of women is receding into the past. but this time feminist consciousness has if anything become more widespread. this raises the question: what accounts for this difference? how and what does feminism change when it becomes a cultural current rather than a movem

10、ent for social change?in part this different history may have to do with the disparities between the first and second waves of feminism. the first wave of feminism began, in the 1840s, as a demand for womens equality generally. the womens movement emerged out of the abolitionist movement, and at fir

11、st feminism was part of an egalitarian worldview, closely connected to antislavery and antiracism. but in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and to an even greater degree over the first two decades of the twentieth, mainstream feminism narrowed to the demand for woman suffrage. leading femin

12、ists, mostly middle- and upper-middle-class, native-born white women, even made racist and anti-immigrant arguments for woman suffrage. though the womens movement also included working-class women, many of them are socialists, for whom feminism remained a part of a broader commitment to social equal

13、ity, by the second decade of the twentieth century, radicalism was a minor current within the womens movement. emma goldman, who combined determination to resist the oppression of women with anticapitalist politics, was not typical of feminists of the first two decades of the century. for most femin

14、ists, and for the public, feminism had come to mean the vote for women and little more. once suffrage was won, feminism lost its raison detre and so had little future either as a movement or as consciousness.the second wave of the womens movement turned out differently. it did not narrow ideological

15、ly, nor did it run into any dead end, as its predecessor had. if anything over time the radical currents within the movement gained influence; women who had entered the movement thinking that womens equality would not require major social changes tended to become convinced that gender inequality was

16、 linked to other dimensions of inequality, especially class and race. the womens movement declined, in the eighties and nineties, mostly because the constituency on which it had been largely based, young, mostly white, middle-class women, gradually put political activity behind them. these women wer

17、e beneficiaries of, what john kenneth galbraith has called, the “culture of contentment” of the eighties and nineties.they benefited, along with the rest of the class, from the prosperity of the time; they also benefited from affirmative action. even as they left political activity, few feminists th

18、ought that the aims of the womens movement had been accomplished. many thought that they could continue to work towards these aims in the arenas, mostly professional, that they were entering. feminist consciousness was sustained in part, no doubt, because it was widely understood that its aims had n

19、ot been achieved, and because many women who left the movement remained committed to its goals.this in itself would not have led to the widespread acceptance of feminism that has taken place over the last twenty years. in the wake of the september 11 attacks, some commentators have argued that the i

20、nequality of women in the arab world is a sign of the deep cultural gap involved: to reject feminism is to reject modernity and the west. for instance, laura bush, speaking on the weekly presidential radio address, on november 17, 2001, supported the bush administrations attack on afghanistan on gro

21、unds of the denial of womens rights by the taliban. in the sixties, probably even in the seventies, such an argument would have been unthinkable. many feminists, especially radical feminists, thought that their challenge to male supremacy was also a challenge to the existing social order. many, who

22、regarded themselves as guardians of that social order, agreed. how has feminism become an accepted part of modern, western society rather than an enemy of it?.the emergence of the second wave of feminism in the united states, was connected to a transformation of the economy that was drawing women in

23、to the labor force on a permanent basis. before the second world war few women worked outside the home after marrying and having children; most of the few who did were blacks or immigrants. the middle class set the cultural standard: marriage meant domesticity for women. working-class people, includ

24、ing immigrant groups, strove to attain this idea. even the depression of the 1930s did not put much of a dent in it; many women supported their families after their husbands lost their jobs, but often by taking work into the home. during the second world war many women worked outside the home, but t

25、hat was understood as a temporary, wartime necessity, and most women who worked in industrfor women, working for wages outside the home has become the norm. this, in combination with feminist pressure for greater gender equality on all levels of society, has transformed the lives of u.s. women as we

26、ll as the very structure of u.s. society. the feminist goal of gender equality has not been achieved; not only do women still earn less than men, but in the ranks of the poor, single women and their children have come to predominate. the prejudices that discourage women from entering traditionally m

27、ale fields remain and violence against women persists. though the nuclear family of the forties and fifties was based on male supremacy, the increasing instability of family life has hardly been a blessing for women. but womens equality has become a publicly accepted principle. glaring deviations fr

28、om this principle are open to challenge, and very large numbers of women are ready to make such challenges when necessary. this in itself is an enormous and transforming advance.so, over the last two decades feminist consciousness has spread even as the organized womens movement has contracted. this

29、 is partly because of the increasing numbers of women in the labor force, and in other areas of public life, who, in talking to each other and giving each other support, spread and redefined feminism, even if they do not call themselves feminists or use the word. it was possible for the first wave o

30、f feminism to disappear because the womens movement that it was associated with had come to an end without the majority of american women having gained access to arenas outside the home. the fact that women are now in the labor force and the public arena to stay makes it hard to imagine that feminis

31、m and what it stands for could disappear again. this is a measure of progress. probably feminism will continue to be a major political current in the united states, though perhaps not based in any movement, and in that sense a cultural as well as a political phenomenon.over the last two decades othe

32、r movements have followed the same trajectory as the womens movement. the environmental movement is a clear case: once consisting of large numbers of people engaged in political activity, it now consists on the one hand of a series of staff-driven organizations, and on the other, of a large sector o

33、f people who consider themselves environmentalist, or who have an environmental consciousness, but who take action on environmental issues largely in individual ways, such as in their shopping habits and in recycling. a similar argument could be made about the african-american movement, whose organi

34、zations have shriveled while militant forms of racial and ethnic consciousness have expanded, at least culturally, among young people. to some degree this expansion of various forms of consciousness going way beyond the borders of the movements in which they first emerged shows the lasting influence

35、 of those movements. but it also has to do with what appears to be the decline of political and protest movements, and the difficulty of finding compelling forms of political engagement. the tendency of the political to collapse into the cultural, even as it connotes a measure of triumph, weakens th

36、e left.source: barbara epstein (1995). feminist consciousness after the womens movement/2002/09/01/feminist-consciousness-after-the-womens-movement婦女運(yùn)動后的女性意識芭芭拉愛潑斯坦 在美國,影響數(shù)以百萬計(jì)的婦女的生活及行動以及給予他們政治支持的有組織的女權(quán)運(yùn)動將不復(fù)存在。在美國有許多組織,包括從全國婦女組織到女性工會黨團(tuán)會議和專業(yè)團(tuán)體,它們?yōu)閶D女爭取權(quán)利,并且有更多的機(jī)構(gòu),其中許多包括男人和女人,其重點(diǎn)

37、是解決婦女問題。但是在六十年代末，七十年代和八十年代初，群眾性的婦女運(yùn)動不再存在。大部分許多認(rèn)為自己是女權(quán)主義者的女性,總是積極地參與女權(quán)主義組織而不是僅僅在在報(bào)紙閱讀與他們相關(guān)的報(bào)道。在大多數(shù)情況下，被吸引到政治活動中的年輕女人都不愿加入婦女團(tuán)體。他們更傾向于加入反企業(yè),反全球化,或者社會公正團(tuán)體。這些年輕的婦女很可能認(rèn)為自己是女權(quán)主義者,她們加入團(tuán)體的女性主義的視角可能會影響他們定義和解決問題的方式。但這不同于一個(gè)群眾性的男女平等的運(yùn)動。一個(gè)類似的運(yùn)動也同時(shí)在其他圈子發(fā)生?，F(xiàn)在有大量的女性認(rèn)同女權(quán)主義,然而,即使他們不愿意貼上此標(biāo)簽,她們也期望享受和男性平等的權(quán)利。許多的男性也支持這一觀點(diǎn)

38、。女權(quán)主義或原初女權(quán)主的意識的發(fā)展程度,我的意思是現(xiàn)在存在于美國的女性不平等意識的覺醒和抵制它的決心,是婦女運(yùn)動的一種成就。但它也是異常的,因?yàn)樗辉倥c產(chǎn)生它的運(yùn)動有聯(lián)系。當(dāng)美國的第一波婦女運(yùn)動在1921年婦女選舉權(quán)是贏得勝利后進(jìn)入衰退期,女權(quán)主義走向衰落。到了1950年代,女性主義已經(jīng)幾乎完全消失,不僅作為一個(gè)有組織的運(yùn)動,而且也作為一種意識形態(tài)和政治和社會情感。即使在六十年代初的新左派,把自己當(dāng)作一個(gè)女權(quán)主義會使人懷疑并可能引起更極端的反應(yīng)。現(xiàn)在,記憶中美國歷史上第二次女性主義運(yùn)動的衰退,是從事許多女性權(quán)利的運(yùn)動后退到了過去。但這一次女權(quán)主義意識反而已經(jīng)變得更加普遍。這就提出了一個(gè)問題:是

39、什么導(dǎo)致了這種差異?當(dāng)女權(quán)主義成為一個(gè)文化潮流而不是一個(gè)社會變革運(yùn)動，到底是什么導(dǎo)致了女性主義這樣的變化? 這部分不同的歷史可能與的第一和第二波女權(quán)主義的差距有一定的關(guān)系。發(fā)生在19世紀(jì)四十年代的第一波女權(quán)主義普遍地要求婦女平等。婦女運(yùn)動源自于廢奴運(yùn)動,并且第一次女權(quán)主義是作為一種平等主義的世界觀而出現(xiàn),并且與反種族主義反對奴隸制度和反對種族主義密切聯(lián)系。但在十九世紀(jì)最后十年,甚至更大的程度地到了20世紀(jì)前兩個(gè)十年,主流女權(quán)主義縮小到對婦女投票權(quán)的需求。主要的女權(quán)主義者,大多是中產(chǎn)階級和上層中產(chǎn)階級,土生土長的白人女性,甚至為了婦女選舉權(quán)發(fā)表反種族主義和反移民的言論。雖然婦女運(yùn)動還包括工人階級

40、的女人,其中很多都是社會主義者,對他們來說,女權(quán)主義仍然是一個(gè)更廣泛的對社會平等承諾的一部分,由二十世紀(jì)的第二個(gè)十年,激進(jìn)主義是婦女運(yùn)動中的一個(gè)小趨勢。艾瑪戈?duì)柕侣?一個(gè)決心抵制反對資本主義對婦女的政治壓迫的人,并不是的本世紀(jì)頭二十年的女權(quán)主義者的典型。對于大多數(shù)女權(quán)主義者和公眾,女權(quán)主義越來越意味著婦女的選舉權(quán)。所以 一旦獲得了選舉權(quán)，女權(quán)主義便失去了其存在的理由，無論是作為一個(gè)運(yùn)動或意識。 第二波女權(quán)運(yùn)動則是不同的。它在上思想沒有變得狹隘,也沒有遇到任何的死胡同,正如其前身。久而久之，這種激進(jìn)的潮流隨時(shí)間的推移產(chǎn)生了影響;參與運(yùn)動的女性認(rèn)為，女性的平等不需要重大社會變化。這往往使性別不平等

41、與的其他不平等，特別是階級和種族這種不平等是有關(guān)的這一說法變得可信。在80年代和90年代，婦女運(yùn)動的衰退很大程度上是基于這些年輕的白人中產(chǎn)階級婦女逐漸擺脫政治活動。加爾布雷斯稱，這些女性都是80年代和90年代“文化的滿足感”的受益者。在女性主義運(yùn)動繁榮的時(shí)候，他們連同其他階級共同受益;同時(shí)，他們也得益于扶持行動。即使他們離開政治活動，很少有女權(quán)主義者認(rèn)為婦女運(yùn)動的目標(biāo)已經(jīng)完成。許多人認(rèn)為他們可以繼續(xù)工作,這些目標(biāo)在競技場,主要是專業(yè)的,他們進(jìn)入。許多進(jìn)入這個(gè)領(lǐng)域的多是專業(yè)人士，他們認(rèn)為自己可以在賽場繼續(xù)努力實(shí)現(xiàn)這些目標(biāo)。毫無疑問，女權(quán)意識在某種程度上還在持續(xù)，因?yàn)樗粡V泛地理解為它的目標(biāo)還沒有實(shí)現(xiàn)，許多離開了婦女運(yùn)動的婦女仍然致力于實(shí)現(xiàn)其目標(biāo)。在過去的二十年，這本身并不會導(dǎo)致廣泛的接受女權(quán)主義現(xiàn)象的發(fā)生。在9 .11恐怖襲擊之后,一些評論員認(rèn)為阿拉伯女性的不平等標(biāo)志著一個(gè)世界文化鴻溝，即:拒絕女權(quán)主義就是拒絕現(xiàn)代化與西方世界。例如，勞拉布什總統(tǒng)在每周廣播講話中發(fā)言，2001年11月17日，支持布什政府的理由是因?yàn)樗喾穸▼D女的權(quán)利。在六十年代，甚至可能在七十年代，這樣的說法已經(jīng)是不可想象的。許多女權(quán)主義者，尤其是激進(jìn)的女權(quán)主義者，認(rèn)為他們的挑戰(zhàn)男權(quán)至上也是對現(xiàn)有的社會秩序的一種挑戰(zhàn)。許多認(rèn)為自己是社會秩序的守護(hù)者的人同意這